


Time and the Doctor

by JackieSBlake7



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-24
Updated: 2017-04-24
Packaged: 2018-10-23 10:52:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 592
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10717965
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JackieSBlake7/pseuds/JackieSBlake7
Summary: How the Doctor sees the multiverse





	Time and the Doctor

The Doctor had occasionally been asked by his companions how the Time Lords "saw" time.

On one level, he explained, they operated in time like all other conscious species: the events of their lives were ordered in chronological fashion, and they could understand and make use of calendars. 

It was in the other ways that they perceived time that the Time Lords differed - and the different species that served as Time Lords throughout the multiverse differed amongst themselves. The analogy the Doctor used was of colours and of infrared photography - just as the images showed objects at different temperatures, and colours could be more or less intense, so time and activities left traces. The more that happened in a locality, or the more recent the events, the stronger the colours of time and the more varied the patterns. While the truth was more complex than those not so attuned could understand, the description was valid and understood.

Most places even in the depths of space had some "time-colour" - galaxies rotated and moved, and, given long enough , most areas would have #something#traverse through them, even if the traces gradually faded. Various of those he described such areas to came up with the concept of sponges, the holes gradually enlarging - a good enough description Other localities were more rainbow coloured - andit was the different patterns that enabled the Time Lords to make use of time. Those areas where "much happened" could be almost overpoweringly bright: and some events left long shadows - he sometimes wondered if ghost stories reflected some faint ability to sense time in the same way.

There were occasional blank spaces as the Tardis travelled through space- whatever had happened, if anything, had been so long ago that even space-time bore no trace. The older the universe that was visited the bigger such patches were - and he could feel the absences. From discussions with other Time Lords this was a normal phenomenon - time was so integral to their being that they needed it in ways that those who were not Time Lords could not understand. The Tardis was able to sense the patterns - and a particular screen would show the patterns of temporal colour.

Only some Time Lords cared to explore the older reaches of the multiverse - or, more accurately, down the time lines of individual universes, and they always did so with non-Time Lord companions, who were unaffected by temporal absences. The Doctor was occasionally curious enough, or found sufficient reason to do so - and he allowed the Tardis to venture increasingly far into "the future" on various journeys. There was still the potential for activities even as the expansion of some universes became evident, and had an impact on travel and locating suitable planets. The temporal colours became muted, the patterns an increasingly lace-like tracery than the near solidity that normally surrounded him.

Then, on one transition he was surprised by the near total time-darkness around him - though there was a fading galaxy visible - and a scattering of time-colour surrounding it. The comforting surround and feel of time was absent ... this was how non-Time Lords perceived the universe:.but they were not aware of it. Like them he was living purely "within time" rather than "with time." He #was# able to endure it - understanding the change in perspective, and that he would appreciate the return to a more normal background all the more.

However, he knew in his hearts that he would return in his personal future timeline to see how long the echo of the Tardis' presence persisted.

**Author's Note:**

> The image would be of a bubble with the colours swirling around - and then the growing black areas where the film is getting too thin


End file.
